The Dark Lord's Familiar
by TheCatsTales
Summary: After the events of OotP, Harry decides the Light has little to offer him, and wants to escape Dumbledore's manipulations. During summer holidays the perfect opportunity presents itself, but is he willing to live with Voldemort in order to leave the Light? More importantly, is he willing to live as a snake? Grey/dark!harry, kinda Dumbledore bashing, notcompletelyevil!Voldemort


Harry Potter was a very unusual boy, even by wizarding standards, and he was more than used to ending up in rather unusual situations. After all, not many people can claim to have faced a troll at the age of eleven, or slain a basilisk when they were only twelve, and nobody else had ever survived the Killing Curse, let alone at the tender age of one.

Yes, he was a magnet for trouble, and trouble always seemed to find him in the most outlandish ways possible. But even for Harry, his current predicament was downright strange.

His fifth year at Hogwarts had ended a week ago, and that week had been nothing short of pure hell for the young wizard. Over the last year his confidence in the wizarding world had slowly been chipped away. Named a liar and attention seeker by those who had once heralded him a (reluctant) hero, he had suffered through a year of ridicule and even torture at the hands of people who refused to believe that Voldemort had returned. Then to cap it all off, and make the past year officially the worst he could ever remember, he had watched his godfather die right in front of him.

Of course the instant Voldemort revealed himself, Harry was once again labeled a hero. 'The Chosen One'. Not that it made any difference. Not really. The insults had stopped, but that would have happened on its own eventually anyway, as it always did. Nobody had even offered a sincere apology, never mind any form of compensation or - Merlin forbid! - assistance with his upcoming ordeal. No, the wizarding world had simply swept the slander and abuse he had had to deal with under the rug, and expected Harry to do the same. He was expected to simply forgive and forget, to continue being a perfect icon of the Light, and to go forth and deal with his problems singlehandedly, because after all, that is what good heroes do.

So once again the end of the school year had found him locked away in the Dursley household, slaving away at unreasonable chores, and being beaten for the tiniest of infringements of the ever changing rules.

None of this, however, was at the forefront of Harry's mind right now, because right now Harry's mind was occupied with trying to process what he was seeing.

He had a tail.

Not only did he have a tail, he was also missing his arms and legs. Add to that that he had somehow managed to transport himself from his bedroom at Privet Drive to a huge garden who-knows-where, and this was officially the strangest thing that had ever happened to him. And when your name is Harry James Potter, that can never bode well.

At least he was reasonably sure how this had happened. He would bet his right arm - if he still had one - that this was a product of his 'accidental' magic. Or at least that is what Dumbledore and the Ministry would call it. In reality, Harry knew that he hadn't preformed true accidental magic since the first time he had apparated, when Dudley and his gang had chased him and he had ended up on the roof of the school. Since then he had been performing a kind of wandless magic, even if at first he wasn't aware that was what he was doing.

Unlike wanded magic, wandless magic relied far more on emotions, intent and will, and a lot less on structure, spells and wand movements. While Harry's spellwork was average, he was extraordinarily good at wandless magic. Even before the age of eleven he was capable of both Vanishing and Conjuring wandlessly with minimal effort; skills that he demonstrated at the zoo when he had Vanished the glass to free the snake, before Conjuring new glass to trap his cousin.

Before Hogwarts he hadn't realised that he was doing magic at all, he just knew that if he really wanted something to happen, all he had to do was concentrate to make it happen. It hadn't been until the summer before his third year, when he blew up his Aunt Marge, that he had realised he was performing wandless magic with deliberate intent. While he would never admit it to anyone other than himself, he had purposefully blown up his aunt, and he wanted to see her suffer for all the abuse she had put him through. Accidental magic would have blown up the TV, or burst the pipes, not attacked his aunt in such a controlled manner. It definitely would not have fulfilled the fantasy he had often had of his overweight aunt slowly inflating. His fantasies had ended with his aunt exploding, but that would have been messy, so floating away was really a better option.

Since then he had been researching all he could on wandless magic, practicing control and testing his limits in secret. The best part of it was that if he was caught, people wrote it off as volatile teenage hormones causing outbursts of accidental magic. Blew up his goblet with an overpowered banishing charm? The abusive newspaper articles triggered his temper (or Seamus did it, which even Seamus is happy to believe). Set fire to his bed practice warming charms? He is frustrated at his lack of ability to take action. Cursed Umbridge's chair so it bites her every time she sits down? Well, nobody had actually blamed him for that one yet, but he was pretty sure he could pass it off as something the Slytherins did, because precious Golden Boy Harry Potter couldn't possibly know any remotely Dark magic.

Wandless magic allowed a wizard to become more in-tune with his magical core, so he could better direct his power without relying on a wand or hand gestures. The closer a wizard was to his magical core, the more powerful and controlled his magic would be, until the wizard only had to think about what he wanted in order for his magic to respond. Unfortunately, that also meant that the magic often reacted to a wizards' subconscious plea, whether their conscious self thought it was a good idea or not. In extreme circumstances, the magic could even act with near-sentience.

That, Harry suspected, was how he had gotten into this situation. Though why his magic had thought that he needed to be a snake in a fancy garden miles away from the Dursley's (because he knew of no places anywhere near 4 Privet Drive that could have gardens like the one he was in) was anybody's guess. At least he didn't feel sore any more. The transformation from human to leg-less reptile did at least seem to have healed his injuries from his uncle and cousin's beatings far better than any conscious healing efforts had.

Actually, the more Harry thought about it, the closer he came to the conclusion that being a snake - for now at least - was actually better than being a human. As a snake, emotions like compassion and guilt were muted and he was finally able to admit some things to himself, without his pesky emotions getting in the way.

The biggest revelation he had had was that his last remaining connection to the Light side had died along with Sirius. While he still liked Hermione, and would always be her friend, their friendship wasn't close enough to keep him aligned with the Light, and Ron had shredded what was left of their true friendship during their fourth year. Thanks to Dumbledore's manipulations, Harry didn't really know any Order members well enough to be influenced by them either - he had never even met some of them. As for the Headmaster himself, he was the main reason Harry had begun to doubt in the first place. Despite his Gryffindor heart (that he was coming to realise wasn't as Gryffindor as he had believed), his mind was Slytherin, and like any good Slytherin, Harry was a master manipulator when he wanted to be, and could smell the Headmaster's manipulative efforts from a mile away.

The only firm friendships he still had was that he had with the Weasley twins, who he knew would support him regardless of his choices, and Remus, who would follow the last member of his pack to hell and back if he had to. The revelation about Remus had been a bit of a shock at first, as Harry - and pretty much the rest of the world - had thought that Remus' loyalties lay firmly with Dumbledore. However Moony apparently held more sway over Remus than Remus liked to admit, and according to Moony his first and foremost priority was his pack. With the death of Sirius, that left only Harry, and as Remus had always had more of an advisory role in his adopted pack, rather than a leadership role, that meant that wherever Harry went, Moony, and consequently Remus, was sure to follow.

With no real reason to join the Light any more, Harry had begun considering his options. A choice that barely needed making was that he would never return to the Dursley's again, regardless of what protection the blood wards may offer. What good was the ultimate protection against outside influences - if that is even what the blood wards were, which he very much doubted - if his relatives were slowly killing him anyway?

Whether or not to return to Hogwarts was another matter entirely. On the one hand, it was the first place he had ever felt truly at home, and the vast library provided knowledge on virtually every subject you could desire - once you knew how to look properly that is. He would always love Hogwarts, and have a connection with her that ran deeper than that that most students or even teachers had with the ancient castle.

On the other hand, the people within the castle frustrated him on the best of days. The constant expectancy that he would be great and demonstrate amazing magical prowess (which he could when he wanted to, but his wandless magic was his own thank you very much), the fickle affection that the student body gave him that could so easily turn into rabid hatred and loathing, as it so often had, and the near constant comparisons the teachers made to his father all infuriated him. Most of all, he didn't know if he wanted to place himself under Dumbledore's control once more. Now he had no allegiance to the Light, the meddling old coot had no hold on him - any possible emotional blackmail Dumbledore had possessed had vanished as Sirius fell through the Veil - and Harry very much wanted to keep it that way. Being under the old coot's thumb would also limit the magic he could learn, because in Albus bloody Dumbledore's eyes Dark magic was inherently evil and even expressing an interest must mean that you are considering joining Voldemort and his merry band of lunatics.

Which brought him to another matter that needed careful consideration; what to do about Voldemort. Harry had no personal quarrel with the man. Yes, Voldemort had killed his parents, but it had been done in response to the Prophecy, and Harry couldn't bring himself to hate a man for making a preemptive strike during a war. He didn't even know much about the war, beyond what he had read in books - and after his experiences with the 'history books' written about himself, he took everything the books said with a pinch of salt - so he couldn't even say if he agreed with the side his parents had chosen.

However he doubted that his opinion - or lack thereof - would make any difference when it came to Voldemort. Thanks to the Prophecy, the man was obsessed with trying to kill him, and Harry doubted anything short of migrating to Australia would stop him. In this, his Gryffindor tendencies were winning out over his Slytherin self-preservation; he refused to be chased out of the country.

For now, life was much easier as a snake, were he could think his options through, without little distractions like people telling him what to think and do, or megalomaniacs trying to kill him.

Coiling up on a sun-warmed stone, Harry settled down to think.

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Sometimes Voldemort wondered if all Dark Lords were cursed to have incompetent followers, or if he was just particularly unlucky. Any idiot with a wand should be capable of killing someone, yet an entire team of Death Eaters failed to kill a handful of school children. The only followers he had that were even remotely competent were those of his Inner Circle (the ones that hadn't gone insane, at least), and there were far too few of them.

As much as he may like to, however, he could not lay all of the blame for their incompetence at their feet. He was forced to admit, very reluctantly and only in deepest depths of his own mind, that some of the blame lay with him, and the insanity he had succumbed to after making his many horcruxes. It had only been thanks to his possession of Harry Potter that he had realised the extent of the damage he had inadvertently caused himself.

The sheer weight of the guilt and grief that the boy had felt for his dead godfather (he made a mental note to punish Bella for that; he had specifically told them _no fatalities_) had overwhelmed him as he broke into the boy's mind, and triggered the reabsorption of the fragment of his soul that lay in the boy - apparently someone else's remorse was just as good as your own where Horcruxes were concerned. It was quite possibly the most painful thing he had ever experienced, rivalled only by the time his body had been destroyed.

The morning after the failed mission he had expected to be consumed by irrational fury, as his insanity once again took complete control over his body, which would have resulted in all of his followers suffering a round _crucio_ at the very least. Instead he had awoken to find himself angry, yes, but also feeling oddly clear headed and _content_. He had still punished his followers of course, because that is, after all, what Dark Lords do, and his Death Eaters had been bested by a bunch of _school children_, which was embarrassing no matter how you look at it. His punishments, however, had been fairer than his normal cursing-everything-in-the-room-until-everyone-was-screaming way of doing things, though he doubted the Death Eaters had noticed, and even if they had, none would dare comment, let alone question it, lest his new sense of fairness vanish.

It had been that afternoon that he realised that the link he shared with the boy had all but vanished. If he concentrated, he could still very faintly feel the boy's mind, but not clearly enough to even distinguish between his emotions, let alone invade his mind.

Shortly after, he had locked himself away in his library, searching for the reason behind his current change in his mental and emotional (and, a very, very little, his physical) state. After several days - and a study session to rival even the most exam stressed, N.E.W.T level Ravenclaw - he had finally found what appeared to be the answer, in the form of an ancient book written in Parselscript.

The book had been almost exclusively about Horcruxes, and had covered them in far more detail than any of the books Voldemort had read while at Hogwarts, when he made his first Horcrux. In addition to the warnings all the books had contained - warnings about effects that he had rather naively - or arrogantly - believed he could avoid - and the rituals for creating a Horcrux that some of the books had contained, this book also contained detailed information about how to reverse the process of Horcrux creation, how to negate some of the side effects, an in-depth guide on to how to choose the item that the Horcrux will be stored in, and even more jewels of information about Horcruxes in general. All in all, this is the book he had needed all those years ago when he had first stumbled across the concept in his readings backs at Hogwarts.

After reading the book cover to cover, he had come to the conclusion that Soul magic was something he should never have touched. He had been woefully uninformed and dangerously overconfident when he had stumbled upon the discovery as teenager. As a consequence he had rushed ahead, and meddled with what he now realised was a highly dangerous and volatile branch of magic. To rectify the mistakes he made as a young man, he would now have to suffer a great deal of pain to reabsorb each soul fragment. Not repairing his soul, however, was not an option. Even if regaining his sanity was not enough motivation, the other consequences the book promised would be; consequences he now realised he would never have been able to avoid.

So far he had reabsorbed two of his soul fragments; the one from Potter, and the one stored in his familiar Nagini. Sadly Nagini hadn't survived the removal of the Horcrux. Unlike Potter, her soul had accepted the new soul fragment, and had intertwined with it, whereas everything in Potter objected to the presence of the foreign soul fragment, and his magic had done it's best to drive it out of the boy, keeping it as detached from his mind and soul as possible, and even forcing the entire thing to reside just below his scar, which was as close as it could get to being expelled from his body without being removed. In addition to the two reabsorbed fragments, Voldemort had also discovered that, thanks to the stupidity of one of his followers, another fragment had been forced out of the diary that had contained it, and he would now have to preform a complex ritual to get it back.

It was the same fool that had decided to give his precious diary to a mere school girl that accompanied him now. The Death Eater had been severely punished for his mistakes, but contrary to popular belief, Voldemort had never considered killing him for it. Lucius Malfoy had many faults but he was also a great asset, and someone Voldemort could consider as...well, maybe not quite a _friend_, but something close. Not that he would ever tell the man that.

As his sanity had started to return he had begun to pay more attention to his followers and the power plays between them. He had been rather irritated to discover that the hierarchy that he had formed originally was now in tatters. The new hierarchy seemed to be based more off who was willing to commit horrific acts in his name and who was the most intimidating, than any real structure.

He sighed inwardly, half listening to Lucius' report as they walked, distracted by thoughts of the various things he needed to change, and decisions he needed to make. Being rendered completely insane for decades was turning out to be a mighty inconvenience when it came to furthering his cause. At least with the restoration of his sanity he had been able to rekindle the loyalty of some of his less insane followers, those who had joined him for his cause, and not just because they wanted a reason to kill people.

_§Watch it!§_

The sudden hiss drew his attention to the ground, where a young looking black serpent had raised itself up threateningly and was glaring at Lucius. Not particularly wanting to lose one of his most useful followers to the bite of an offended snake, he intervened.

_§My apologies, little ssserpent, we did not sssee you there,§ _he hissed soothingly in parseltounge, while Lucius cautiously stepped back, out of immediate striking distance.

The snake's focus shifted immediately, the forked tongue flickering out in the serpent version of a surprised blink. It regarded him for a moment, before speaking.

_§Well, thisss isss unexpected.§ _The snake's words caught Voldemort by surprise. The usual response was for the snake to fawn over him at first, honoured to be talking to a speaker. While he found snakes to be altogether more tolerable and better to be around than humans, and didn't particularly want them to be constantly fawning over him (not that any self respecting snake would ever be caught fawning over anything for any length of time), the lack of initial awe threw him.

_§Indeed it isss. It isss not every day I find a new sssnake on my groundsss, essspecially one asss…unusual asss yourself,§ _he responded after a moments pause, pushing away the thoughts of Nagini, who was the reason that normally no other snakes could be found in the grounds surrounding his manor. She had been a remarkably territorial snake.

_§Unusual? It what way am I unusual? I sssimply desire to not be ssstepped on.§_ said the snake in a falsely innocent voice. _§Maybe it isss because I am not sssuitably impressed by your ability to ssspeak my tongue?§_ the snake continued, replacing the innocent tone with shrewd one. Voldemort suddenly got the feeling he was being tested by the small black snake.

_§That isss one assspect of it,§_ he began slowly, wondering what the snake wanted, or was expecting him to say. Part of him was wondering why he was even worried about the opinion of the young snake at all. _§However you are unusual in other waysss asss well. You are the firssst to venture into these gardensss sssince my familiar declared them asss hers, and you act like no other ssserpent I have met. I must also confess that your ssspecies isss a myssstery to me; I have never seen another with markingsss quite like yourself.§_

It was true; he truly had never come across any species that had markings like those of the serpent before him. At first glance the snake appeared to be jet black, with a slightly bluish hue where the sunlight reflected off his scales. Upon closer inspection, a thin, dark red zigzag pattern, that looked almost almost like repeated lightning bolts, could be seen along the serpent's back. And it seemed the longer Voldemort observed the snake, the more he saw; now he could just about make out rosettes of a grey so dark it blended almost perfectly with the black that covered the rest of the slim snake's body, that seemed to be constantly moving, even when the snake was motionless.

_§I don't know my ssspecies either.§_ The snake sounded amused, as though the lack of knowledge about it's species was an inside joke. _§Maybe I'm one of a kind,§_ he - it sounded like a male anyway - continued in the same amused tone.

_§What about your nessst mates?§_ Voldemort enquired curiously. He chose his words carefully, making an effort to avoid overly human phrases (even if the snake did seem to talk more like a human than most snakes), in an effort to make the snake more at ease with him. For reasons he couldn't explain, he was quite taken with the little creature. If he could, he would be persuading it to accompany him back to the house. He felt a brief flash of guilt (it took him a moment to place the emotion) at replacing Nagini so soon, but there was something appealing about the odd little serpent.

The snake made an odd jerking motion that he translated as a serpentine shrug. _§Didn't have any. I wasss...abandoned asss a hatchling.§_ The snake stared at him for a moment, before seeming to come to a decision. _§I ended up with a family of humansss. They ensured I didn't die, but they didn't ssseem to like me very much, and didn't care for me well. I alwaysss wondered why they didn't just get rid of me; it would have been a preferable option for usss both. Not that it matters anymore. I essscaped today, and now I'm free.§_ The snake gave a satisfied hiss as he shifted on the rock he lay on.

_§Do you know which family you lived with? You did not have a bond with any of the humansss you lived with, did you?§_ It was more of a statement than a question, but Voldemort wanted to be sure. Stealing someone's familiar - albeit accidentally and by the serpent's own free will - could draw unnecessary attention. Even as he spoke, he was mentally scrolling through a list of wizarding families that lived close by who the snake could possibly have lived with. The list was short, and mainly made up of his followers.

_§No, the humansss I lived with did not have magic, and could not have bonded with me even if they had wanted to. I could tell you who they are, but I sssee little point asss they do not live nearby and I don't want to go back.§_

Voldemort almost smirked as he heard the unspoken 'you can't make me' at the end of the snake's speech. However something much more pressing had caught his attention.

§_You sssaid you essscaped today.§_ The snake nodded in agreement. _§Yet you sssay you do not live clossse.§_ The snake agreed once more, this time looking a little impatient. Voldemort was sure that if the snake had eyebrows, one would be raised now in a silent 'get to the point'. _§How did you get here if you live more than a daysss travel away? I know of no means of travel a sssnake can use to travel so fassst unasssisted.§ _Suspicion laced his tone as he finished speaking.

While he may not be insane anymore, he still had a healthy dose of paranoia, and suddenly coming across a snake that could act so human and that he felt compelled to take with him was setting alarm bells ringing. No snake he had ever met was capable of maintaining such a human attitude, and he had spoken to many; even the captive born snakes raised by hand could not act so human.

The unusual attitude alone he could have ignored; there are quirky members of every species, and snakes are no exception. The unusual attitude combined with the inexplicable appeal of the snake and the snake's apparent abilities to move from one place to another so fast, however, was suspicious. He would not put it past Dumbledore to send a snake animagus to spy on him.

Silently he cast a series of revealing and detection spells, before the snake even had a chance to answer his question. All of them came back negative, except the magical energy detection spell, which caused the snake to light up like Hogwarts at Christmas. However all the magic belonged to the snake; the other spells showed no signs of other magic signatures, and most importantly, the spells showed that the snake was indeed a snake, albeit a quirky and highly magically charged one. Satisfied, he slipped his wand back into his sleeve.

The snake, however, did not seem so satisfied. In fact, it appeared rather irate.

_§What wasss that? What did you do?§_ The snake had raised his slim body up again, and seemed ready to strike. Rather belatedly, Voldemort remembered that some of the spells he had cast could be rather uncomfortable for the person - or serpent - on the receiving end.

_§My apologiesss, little one, I did not mean to upssset you. I wasss merely being cautiousss. I have many enemiesss, and needed to ensssure you were not one of them.§_

The snake stared at him for a long moment, before settling back onto the rock with a disgruntled hiss. _§I understand, but sssome warning would be appreciated in the future. Did it have to hurt ssso much? It wasss like being burned by hot metal.§_

Voldemort briefly wondered when the little black snake had experienced being burned by 'hot metal', but filed the question away for later; he did not think the snake was in the mood to have his past question right now, and the Dark Lord did not want to upset him any further.

_§It isss not normally painful. Sssome of the ssspells are uncomfortable, but none should have hurt. But then,§_ the Dark Lord said wryly, _§I think we have essstablished that there isss nothing normal about you, little one.§_

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Lucius - who he had completely forgotten about - shifting slightly, the only outward sign of his unease at his Lord's continued use of parseltounge, but ignored it. His follower could wait a little longer. For now, the beautiful black serpent was more important; he had not found another being this interesting in a long time, and he had no intentions of leaving without the snake, now that he had established that it was, indeed, a snake.

It would appear that the snake had also caught onto Lucius' unease, as he tilted his head slightly to stare at the blonde wizard, flicking out his tongue, with amusement dancing in his eyes.

_§It would appear your pet is getting anxiousss,§_ the amusement in the snake's voice was clear. _§Perhapsss he doesn't like it when his master'sss attention is not focusssed on him?§_

_§'My pet'? What makesss you say that?§_ repeated Voldemort, amused. He glanced at the Death Eater in question, who stiffened slightly under his gaze.

_§He followsss you around, conssstantly at your heelsss, and ssstands quietly while you talk to the only other intelligent being in the area, obediently waiting for your commandsss. He knowsss his place, like any good little pet.§_ The snake's tone was joking, but held an almost sinister undertone. This snake obviously held humans in even lower regard than Nagini had done, and Voldemort wondered what the serpent would do, should Lucius overstep his 'place'. Somehow he doubted Lucius would find it pleasant.

The appeal of the little black snake was increasing every second.

_§You have an amusing and rather unique view on the world.§_ Voldemort hesitated for a second, wondering how his next question would be taken. Blunt and direct was usually the best way to approach a snake if you wanted trust, but this snake was different to others. In the end he decided to ask, and hope for the best; not his usual strategy, but at least it would give him an idea of where he stood with the serpent. _§Would you like to accompany me?§_

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If he had still had eyelids, Harry would have blinked in shock. Instead his tongue flickered in what he had realised was the snake equivalent.

In his last few hours on the rock he had learnt some things about his new form. Most of his new knowledge was unremarkable, and simply required some adapting; his muscles worked differently and moving about had taken some getting used to - if anybody had been watching, he was sure he must have looked like an idiot, with all the bobbing about he had done; his viewpoint of the world had changed dramatically, going from over five feet to less than an inch above the ground; he was far more sensitive to changes in temperature; his sense of smell was far more sensitive; the list went on. Other realisations had been a bit more dramatic.

When a mouse had passed by, he struck on instinct, and had sunk his fangs into the small mammal before he fully realised what he was doing. It was then that he had realised that not only could he control the injection of venom into a victim of his bite, he could control what it did. It was only when he had chosen to kill the mouse, and felt the rush of the venom, that he realised that his venom was actually a manifestation of his magic.

After several experiments (and eating the mouse, because he really was starving and didn't care if it was disgusting), he had discovered that his venom worked much like his wandless magic. While the venom had the obvious draw back of being physical, and therefore harder to distribute, as it had to come into contact with whatever he wanted to affect, it only took willpower and focus to achieve a result he desired.

The discovery of his magic/venom had seemed to unlock something, as he was suddenly hit with an onslaught of information. It was like someone had emptied an encyclopaedia into his head. He suddenly knew exactly what size and weight he should be, what size and weight he was (it was rather depressing to have the sudden realisation that he should be an entire foot longer than he was), why he was not the correct size (malnutrition, what a surprise), what his dietary requirements were, what foods he liked, what condition his body was in, what abilities he possessed (even if half of the information didn't make sense), the list went on. He still felt like he was missing some vital information - exactly what he was, and whether or not he could get back to his human form, if he still even had a human form - but overall it seemed he now knew more about this form than he did about his human form.

The onslaught of information had been distracting, and he hadn't registered the presence of wizards until one had almost stepped on him, making him shout out before he had realised what he was doing. When he realised who the wizards were, he wondered if Fate was sitting, laughing at him somewhere.

The conversation with Voldemort had been surprisingly amusing, though he had panicked when the spells had been cast. It was interesting to know that he wasn't an animagus. It made him even more curious about what his magic had done, and, more importantly, meant that Voldemort thought he was a real snake and so wasn't likely to kill or torture him any time soon. It had, however, caused its own problem.

Did he go with Voldemort or not?

On the one hand, it would be a good opportunity to gather information, and as long as he was a snake, he would be protected from both sides of the war. The Dark would not dare harm the Dark Lord's familiar, even if they suspected him, and the last place on Earth the Light would look for Golden Boy Harry Potter was at Voldemort's side.

On the other hand, he would be living with the mad man that had been trying to kill him all his life. Admittedly, Voldemort did seem saner at the moment, but Harry had no idea if this was a permanent change, or just a good day before the man fell back into complete insanity. He didn't know if the transformation into a snake was permanent, either, and suddenly turning back into Harry Potter in Death Eater central could only end badly.

_§I am not a pet. I refussse to be caged. I will only accompany you if I am free to come and go asss I please,§_ he said, both stalling for time and making sure he wouldn't end up stuck in a glass tank the second they got to the manor, if he did decide to go with Voldemort. He wasn't overly surprised when the man agreed immediately. After all, he had never kept Nagini caged, and it was not an unreasonable demand. _§And how do I know that you, or one of your many petsss that I can smell, will not harm me? I am not defencelesss, but nor can I use magic asss you do, and I have never found humansss to be tolerant or trussstworthy.§_ Referring to the Death Eaters as Voldemort's pets gave Harry a rather childish satisfaction, even if they would never know about it. Just the thought of the expression on Malfoy's face, if he ever found out that a snake viewed _him_ as the pet, was priceless.

_§I ssswear to you that I will never consssciously harm you asss long asss you do not attempt to harm me, and if any of my followersss hurt you, they would find the consssequences most unpleasant. They are replaceable. You, asss my familiar, would not be.§_ Harry was shocked at the sincerity in Voldemort's tone, and astounded that he would make a vow not to harm him. Though there had been no formal wording or binding ritual, Harry could taste the magic that had been released as Voldemort spoke, magic that would ensure the promise was kept.

With the danger now virtually neutralised, the benefits of becoming Voldemort's familiar now greatly outweighed the risks.

_§In that cassse, I would love to accompany you.§_

As the words left Harry's mouth, he felt magic saturate the air around them as his magic combined with Voldemort's. Almost as quickly as it had come, the magic vanished, reabsorbed into his (and presumably Voldemort's) body.

In the back of his mind, he was now vaguely aware of the other wizard. The familiar bond allowing him to sense Voldemort's mood, location, and general health. It was similar to the presence he used to feel, though the old connection that he had with Voldemort, that had vanished after he was possessed by the insane wizard, but different.

Harry only had one question left; what now?


End file.
